Nevertheless, Robin
endorses an endless list of bizarre moral claims.For example, he recently told me that “the
main problem” with the Holocaust was that there weren’t enough Nazis!After all, if there had been six trillion
Nazis willing to pay $1 each to make the Holocaust happen, and a mere six
million Jews willing to pay $100,000 each to prevent it, the Holocaust would
have generated $5.4 trillion worth of consumers surplus.

Let’s consider another
example.Suppose the only people in the
world are Hannibal the millionaire, a slave trader, and 10,000 penniless orphan
slaves.The slave trader has no direct
use for his slaves, but likes money; Hannibal, on the other hand, is a ravenous
cannibal.According to Robin, the “optimal
outcome” is for Hannibal to get all 10,000 orphans and eat them.

If you’ve ever taken a
class in moral philosophy, you’ve probably heard weird examples like these
before.Normally, these examples lead
people to back away from their pet moral theories.Robin’s devotion to efficiency is so strong,
however, that he will bite any bullet you present.The most he’ll say in his own defense is that
he is “Merely serving as an advisor to help people get what they want,” but the
fact remains that faced with the preceding examples, he’d advise genocide and cannibalism.

Frankly, I think my
grostesque examples reveal a fatal flaw not just in Robin’s efficiency
standard, but in all one-sentence moral theories.It is absurd to latch on to an abstract grand
moral theory, and then defend it against every counter-example.

Here’s my alternative:Sensible moral reasoning begins with concrete, specific cases.For example: It would be wrong for me to walk
over to Robin right now and punch him.From there, we can start to generalize.It would probably be wrong for me to walk over and punch any of the people in this room.At the same time, we can note
exceptions.If Robin had consented to
box me, then punching him would be
OK.In fact, it would probably be wrong not to try to punch him, because I’d be
cheating you, the audience.

How far can you get with
my approach?Very far.One straightforward moral generalization is
that it is normally wrong to start using or threatening physical violence
against others.Another is that it is
normally wrong to take people’s property without their consent.Even children understand these norms: “Use
your words,” and “That doesn’t belong to you.”On reflection, though, these norms are equivalent to the libertarian
principles of respecting the life and property of others.

But isn’t libertarianism
just another “abstract grand moral theory” subject to all kinds of devastating
counter-examples?If you take
libertarian principles as absolute, then the answer is Yes.As I speak, everyone in this room is shooting
carbon dioxide molecules at other people without their consent.

Note, however, that I was
careful to say that it is “normally” wrong to violate the liberty of
others.If you’ve got a good reason to
violate liberty, I’m open to it.“We’ll
all die if we stop breathing” is a pretty good reason.In contrast, “Most of us want to rob them,” is
an embarrassingly bad reason.

If this is really my view,
why bother to study economics?My
answer:When someone says there is a
“good reason” for a regulation or a tax, we can use economics see whether the
story holds water.If someone says that
we need to restrict the liberty of American consumers to buy Japanese goods in
order to prevent the destruction of the U.S. economy, we can see if the
textbook chapter on international trade agrees.The same applies if someone says it would be more efficient to raise
taxes and spend the revenue on education.Maybe the economics will check out, and we’ll have to think about
whether we have a good enough reason to violate liberty.More often, though, the economics doesn’t check out – and we avoid
violating the liberty of another human being for less than no reason at all.

If you ask me, “Can you prove that your moral view is correct?,”
I could answer your question with another question: “Can Robin prove that his moral view is correct?”But I don’t want to dodge this challenge.The strength of my position is precisely that
I’m not offering you a phony seventeen-step
“proof that murder is normally wrong.”Instead,
I begin with concrete, specific cases where morality is obvious, and reason
from there.I don’t have a mathematical
formula like “Maximize the sum of willingness to pay.”That’s OK.Unlike Robin, I’d rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.